In Volume 6 of Mato Sato’s isekai fantasy light novel series, the promised battle occurs and it ends and there are no apparent consequences at all. Which was only a little surprising, given this series penchant for adding new plot devices, world-building elements and characters freely as a form of adornment, rather than support.

It was, therefore very surprising to begin The Executioner And Her Way Of Life, Volume 7: Lost to learn that in the last 6 months story-wise, a great deal has happened. Instead of showing us, the author decides to tell us, leaving us not so much reading a novel as reading the very comprehensive guide to a novel. Every character is a paragraph of description, followed by their abilities and eventually, some small nugget of their history that might be relevant to the scene, to be added to as the next scene happens, and the next as if we are having this book told to us by a DM rather than a novelist.

I ain’t mad though, because given how many new characters are added and how much has occurred since the last novel, actually having to read the multitudes of scenes would get in the way of the few interesting things that actually happen in this book.

Sahara has not been a particularly fascinating character…until this novel. She’s clearly meant as mediocre foil to Menou’s status in the story. When we catch up with her here, this failed priestess with a magical prosthetic arm is wallowing in her mediocrity, and ennui. As the story develops, she finds that she has little choice but to grow and become a better person – and it annoys the daylights out of her.

What makes this evolution especially noteworthy is that the person she is protecting is someone we (I, definitely) had kept forgetting to care about.

In a series with a lot of throwaway characters, Maya, the little finger of a Human Error, was particularly forgettable, except as a reminder that this writer really likes to torture young girls – something I am not okay being reminded of. Maya’s redemption arc is extraordinary. That it pulls Sahara, and in some ways even Menou herself, along with it, is even more notable.

What worked best in this volume here was the almost complete removal of characters we have focused on in previous volumes. Menou herself is a side character in this novel, but what she chooses to do hints that 1) maybe the author finally has a plan and 2) she might be developing a personality. Both are welcome additions to this narrative.  We find ourselves with something that looks like in the future it might become a resolution, after we fight the next big bad on the way to the biggest baddest. With accompanying grossnesses for grotesquery’s sake. Thankfully, Mato Sato is about as interested in writing the grotesque as I am in reading it, so those scenes tend to be in that guidebook format, rather than lingering.

You may be asking why I continue to read this series. Trust me, I have asked myself that, as well, but, in this series – which is literally a tale of many ways in which humans lose their humanity – the addition of simple kindnesses and connection between people was something that genuinely made this volume worth reading.

Ratings:

Art – 6 Irrelevant as usual. One cannot keep telling us these characters are gorgeous then give us this art.
Story – Begins at 5, but ends at a strong 7
Characters – 8
Service – Light guro
Yuri – Less than usual, and somehow more poignant as a result of it all being so offscreen.

Overall – 7.5

It comes down to the fact that I quite like the construction of the magic and the world-building and kind of want to see where it leads?  I mean, will Menou (or /the person she was originally/) ever reunite with Akari? I dunno. I don’t even know if Mato Sato knows. But I guess we’ll have to find out one day, right? ^_^